Rockstar's anti-modding measures downgrade GTA V's PC performance

A couple of months ago, Reddit posts started popping up suggesting that players were being banned from GTA Online for the use of offline mods. Rockstar stepped in to deny these allegations, but took the opportunity to make their anti-cheating stance very clear. "Our primary focus is on protecting GTA Online against modifications that could give players an unfair advantage, disrupt gameplay, or cause griefing," Rockstar explained.

Now, that's the reasonable part. Here's where they put their foot in their mouth.

It also bears mentioning that because game mods are by definition unauthorized, they may be broken by technical updates, cause instability, or affect your game in other unforeseen ways.

This cautionary tale of the consequences of modding is, ironically, a pretty apt description of what happened to GTA V after Rockstar launched Patch 1.28 ‒ an update designed to sabotage the use of online modifications. Following this patch, many users are reporting micro-stuttering, dropped frame rates, and reduced quality overall.

According to the developers of the LCPD First Response Mod, Rockstar's update introduces a load of unnecessary junk code, which makes navigating the code of GTA V more difficult. Not only that, it also quadruples the amount of time needed to execute script functions. What does this mean for you? An unnecessarily chuggy and buggy game.

To make matters worse, these issues are plaguing cheaters and non-cheaters alike, both in multiplayer and in singleplayer.

While most would prefer to play online without the interference of cheaters and hackers, this simple privilege shouldn't come at the cost of the game's performance.

Don't use your shotgun on problems that can be solved with your knife.

As of yesterday, Rockstar is officially aware of the problem. "We have received reports of lower framerate in GTA V and GTA Online after Title Update 1.28 on PC, and we are looking into these reports now." For more updates on the status of this issue, log in to Rockstar support and subscribe to the page linked above, and make sure to check back with GameSkinny for all things GTA V.

I think that Rockstar should create a game mode where you are able to use Mods online, probably a lot of people who are using the mods online aren't doing it to cheat or cause havoc, but to have fun. I would love a game mode where me and my friends can download some mods to mess about with, personally I'm not bothered about my Rank online I just want to have have fun with it. Also introducing this move all of the griefers into one place where they can be monitored whilst letting the people just want to have fun with mods just enjoy themselves.

Junk data? Seriously? I mean... I may only touched upon high-school level training in terms of programing, but junk data is just sloppy. I imagine they're using the junk data to make it harder for hacks to run (i.e.: junk data must be read before necessary files in order to prevent hacks or mods running) but seriously? Even if that is their method of stopping the hackers and modders, it's just lazy programming.